Why Relying on Climate “Adaptation” Will Be a Disaster

Above, then CEO of Exxon Mobil Rex Tillerson in 2012.
Video should start at about 3:20, with his discussion of “Adapting” to climate change.
Below, atmospheric scientist Andrew Dessler discusses some questions about the “we’ll adapt” approach.
Mr Tillerson went on to become Secretary of State for Donald Trump, in no small part because of his friendly relationship with Vladimir Putin.

Andrew Dessler in Climate Brink:

So the next time someone says “we’ll adapt,” ask them if they’re OK with, say, Central Americans adapting to climate change by moving to the U.S. Are they willing to open our borders to climate refugees?

I think you’ll find that the very voices championing adaptation are among the most likely to also oppose immigration. So the #1 way that humans have adapted over the history of humanity is a non-starter to the “we’ll adapt” crowd.

The alternative to migration is adaptation in place, but that’s not particularly attractive to the “we’ll adapt” crowd either. Building sea walls to guard against rising ocean levels, infrastructure to handle extreme precipitation events, or adding air conditioning to mitigate heatwaves all cost a lot of money. 

Who’s going to foot the bill for this? The inescapable answer is that the world’s rich will have to assist the less fortunate. This means, for example, the U.S. paying to help Africa adapt. Within the U.S., the rich will have to pay to help the poor adapt.

But there’s nothing the “we’ll adapt” crowd will oppose more than that. We can see evidence of their unwillingness to help the poor every day. For example:

Do you think these people are going to pay for poor people to air condition their houses? Or pay to protect a poor neighborhood from flooding? Or any of the million other ways that we’ll have to spend money to adapt to the new climate. Of course not.

Most worrying: The weaponization of adaptation 

The bottom line is that the “we’ll adapt” crowd is not serious about adaptation and they do not support any policy that will help people adapt. Rather, “we’ll adapt” are soothing words used as an excuse to do nothing about climate change.

And it’s not just the neglect of adaptation. Adaptation will be weaponized to harm groups they don’t like. We can already see this taking place.

For example, there’s no more marginalized group of people than prisoners. In Texas, the majority of prisoners live in un-air-conditioned facilities. Having these prisoners living in concrete buildings when the daytime temperature reaches 110F (and nighttime temperatures don’t drop below 80F) is basically torture and it is actually killing prisoners.
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While some level of adaptation is absolutely required — climate change is, unfortunately, here to stay — the notion that it should be our front-line response is flawed at its core. Relying on adaptation as a primary strategy is a recipe for widespread misery and conflict.

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My take, When someone like Rex Tillerson says “We’ll adapt”, he means, “You adapt, suckers, I’ll be in my gated community in an undisclosed northern location.”

This week’s Hurricane Otis which devastated the coast of Mexico is pretty good case in point for the kind of impacts we expect going forward.

This CBS report on climate change and migration is two years old, but pertinent.